Some files not syncing from Mac computer to Ubuntu but others do

[BrunoJ]

Dear all,

I have been banging my head against the wall with this one...

Some of my files do not sync to my Ubuntu computer if I create them in my Mac computer  -other do without any problem- but all files I create in my Ubuntu  show up in my Mac computer. I have the global settings on synchronize all files and folders in both computers.

I have cleaned both dropbox caches, I have stopped and restarted dropbox in both computers. They all show up in the dropbox site so they are all being synchronized to the dropbox servers. It's just the direction from Mac to Ubuntu that sometimes works and sometimes not!

Any ideas? Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any help you might provide,

Bruno

[Rich]

---

@BrunoJ wrote:

Some of my files do not sync to my Ubuntu computer if I create them in my Mac computer ...

---

Problem with the file names?

• https://help.dropbox.com/organize/file-names

[BrunoJ]

Thank you Rich!

It is not the file names but I have narrowed it down to being a problem of files created by Photoshop! It's strange, it only happens with those files. For the moment I have found a workaround solutions -albeit very time-consuming. I download the file I want to use in my Linux computer from the dropbox website to a different folder (just to avoid conflict versions) and then I can use it without any problem in the Linux computer. However, this is not a solution in the long run, I need to either stop using photoshop or stop using dropbox for my work...

[Megan]

Hey @BrunoJ, happy Friday, I hope you're doing well! 

Interesting behavior you got going on there. Can I ask the version of the Dropbox app that's installed on both devices? All you have to do in order to find that, is to locate your Dropbox icon, next to your WiFi and hover your mouse there. 

We want to make sure that both of the versions are the latest stable ones. Also, what is the app's syncing status on both of them when this happens? 

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

[BrunoJ]

Hi Megan,

Both versions are v159.4.5870 and all files sync to the server quickly. That is why I can download them after to my linux computer with my "go around" solution.

If you have any idea of what could be causing this behavior with the photoshop files please let me know. Meanwhile, I've been meaning to switch to using Gimp as an alternative to Photoshop so I just found the perfect justification to get moving 🙂

Best regards,

Bruno

[Hannah]

Thanks for sharing your workaround with our Community, @BrunoJ!

We'll actually leave the thread open, in case another user has some more info for you.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

[FesT]

Hey,
I have the same problem! I am trying to sync my entire Dropbox on a newly set up Linux (The Linux Dropbox client is running version 159.4.5870).
The sync works great, only some files (seems like .jpg .png .tiff .psd) probably saved with an older Photoshop version cannot be downloaded to the Linux machine. If there are too many of these files that are not "downloadable", Dropbox shows that it is syncing, but nothing happens anymore.
On the Mac everything works fine.
Unfortunately, @BrunoJ workaround doesn't work for me, because I have about 2TB of files already on the Dropbox server and I can't open all files and save them again.

Any Idea how to solve that issue?

[Здравко]

Hi @FesT,

Hm.. 🤔 That's something really strange. Can you share (shared link) some .png or .jpg that doesn't contain private info (or just some dummy picture) and definitely cannot (make it sure) sync? Available example might give some ideas... Let's hope.

[FesT]

Hi @Здравко,

it's hard to say which images definitely don't sync, because it can always be that they are simply in the queue...

But with this files I am pretty sure:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkxcwioxmm124r8/Skies0238_L.jpg?dl=0

And some additional information, this ist how it looks in Nautilus:

 at the same time the terminal says syncing 3 files even there are 5 files to sync:

 

Would be great if you find a solution!

[Здравко]

Hi @FesT,

Unfortunately I can't find solution, but can confirm that there is a 2 things. First one is that Dropbox application definitely behaves wrong. Like your findings I can see the same:

Another interesting thing is that downloading the folder "does not sync" and adding the downloaded to Dropbox, it syncs back successful:

The second thing (even more interesting) is both "does not sync" folders are binary identical (and not only). This means that there are undocumented properties (most probably) that affect application behavior.

Let's hope the moderators will forward this to development, so be solved the issue (and documented). But,... better don't rely too much.

I want to tag @Greg-DB here; Is some API features/access point able to show up the differences in files/folder properties affecting this situation? I tried /2/files/list_folder for both "does not sync" folders showing the same, but the state is not actually the same (as can be seen)! 🤔🤷 Any thoughts? How can such a situation be detected/predicted? Thanks Greg!

Good luck, to all of us.